CAAN to distribute bonuses as per the profit obtained

January 10,2017- Kathmandu

Civil Aviation Authority of Nepal (CAAN) has decided to distribute bonuses to its employees as per the profit obtained starting from the fiscal year 2069/70 to 2071/72 between which the organization had earned profits.

The proposal has already been passed by the CAAN board and has been handed to the Tourism Ministry for conformation. If the proposal gets passed by the ministry, it will head to Finance Ministry for final conformation which will decide the fate of the bonus distribution.

CAAN has a total of 1065 employees in the entire country and out of which 850 employees work constantly every day. The amount of bonus is 530 million which will be distributed as per the Bonus Act 1974.

There has been constant debate about how the facilities at the airports under CAAN which number to 49 have not so much of the provisions available. The authority should have invested the money for the betterment of the airports which lack many good infrastructures as well as manpower. The airports in Nepal have been widely criticized for their safety and provisions.

In addition ot that, CAAN is in phase to split and form two bodies, one as service provider and another as regulator and to handle that, CAAN would require money to hire manpower and build facilities.

Likewise, the construction of airports in the entire country is going on and Bhairahawa as well as Pokhara airport has been marked as important projects which will require huge amount of funding. So, the decision of distributing bonuses seems biased and controversial.

In a recent press conference,Sanjiv Gautam, director general of CAAN, stated that the organization had a authorized right to distribute bonuses from the profits earned. However, despite that, it would not look good to distribute money colleted from tax payers. The government has sanctioned CAAN to elevate Rs1,000 (excluding VAT) in airport development tax per a single passenger which totals 1.80 billion yearly.